Still time, he told himself, pushing harder.
Náith burst from the forest’s edge, shattering the tree in his path and bounding down a final barren slope into rolling fields of emerald, untouched by whatever malaise had taken Luw’s domain. He shot through them, leapt over the hillock in his path and crashed down on his feet in the fold behind it, the ground shaking beneath his weight. He threw himself forward again, snaking along the path between their green mounds. The Sisters’ black slopes grimaced above, their peaks lost in the thickening cloud – grown almost to a solid, grinding mass. No sign of Aodhamar or his warband, the gilded bastard had moved quickly. The fight with that spear-dandy had cost Náith dearly – they were probably already climbing the Sisters. He picked up his pace, ignoring the screaming muscles in his legs.
Almost there, my love. Almost –
A red-throated scream came from his left. Náith glimpsed a horned shadow before a bony weight struck him from above and smashed white stars across his vision. He felt himself fall to the side, ricocheting under his own momentum, shoulder tearing a trench through the earth before he slammed into the side of a hill in a spray of soil and torn grass.
Iron flashed through blurred sight. Náith slumped forward and to the side, letting his weight barrel-roll him down the hill. The ground shivered as something slammed into the hill, bouncing him from it to spill back down into the fold.
‘Die, you murdering shit!’
Náith rolled over, swung blindly with the sword still in his clutches. The impact of a clumsy parry shot agonisingly up his arm, sparks of struck iron spattering his skin. The ground shook again as a shadow crashed into it at his side, broken earth spraying. Náith pushed himself to his feet, coughing and swaying, his back ablaze as he tried to find his footing.
‘Enough, Luw!’ he gasped as the Hunter picked himself up from the crater of his impact. ‘Our score can be settled another day!’
‘I will say when this is over, warrior,’ snapped the Hunter, wrenching his burning spear from the earth. He whirled it around himself, sank back into stance, his eyes gleaming like the death-god’s own in the shadows of its mask.
‘Do you not understand what she’s trying to do, you fucking spear-dandy?’ Náith spat, raising his guard. ‘She’ll kill us all!’
‘Spare me your tongue, pig!’
Luw roared and shot for him like an arrow. Náith leapt aside, kicking off from the side of the hill, turning in the air to bring his sword down on the Hunter’s head in a spinning cut. Luw’s wretched spear arched suddenly over his shoulder, catching the blow upon its blade and angling it off-course. The Hunter let the sword’s weight drag him into the air, and Náith caught but the briefest glimpse of Luw’s sweeping shin before it cracked the side of his head and was swallowed in a burst of light.
Náith came to as he struck the brow of a hill. It burst apart in a shower of black earth and emerald grass, breaking his flight so that he spilled down the other side. He landed on his palms, growling, every inch of him screaming out its agony. The little cock-rat was stronger than he had been before, a thousand times more swift and vicious in his blows since he’d gained that burning spear. But he was Náith – Cu Náith – the warrior that had bested Ancu and taken the death-god’s face. And so he pushed himself back to his feet as Luw’s shadow appeared atop the shattered hill, bloodied arms spread in challenge.
Luw leapt, shrieking, from the hill, spear held downward to skewer Náith where he stood. Náith restrained his instinct to dodge, held himself for a heartbeat, and shot toward the Hunter at the last moment. The spear missed – Luw’s thrust going high – and Náith took the Hunter’s boot to his chest with a grunt, its force checking his advance. His hands closed about Luw’s ankle before he could kick off, and he spun, carrying Luw’s momentum through the turn. The Hunter screamed as he was spun in tight circles, speed building, trapped by his own weight the end of Náith’s arms.
‘I told you I’ve no time for your shit, spear-squatter!’ Náith roared, stepping through a final turn on the balls of his feet. He let go, hurling Luw into the air and fell to his knees as the ground lurched, his head still spinning. He caught sight of a flailing shape against the grey western sky, screams fading as it shrunk to a pinprick and was gone.
Náith chuckled vaguely as he stood, shaking off his dizziness. Picking up his fallen sword, he slammed it home in its scabbard, limping toward the Sisters as distant thunder shook the air.
*
Maebhara bit the earth as Luw fell, her blade stealing enough of the impact to spare him. He clung desperately to her haft, dragging her through the ground as the force of the warrior’s throw still hauled on him. He put his boots to the earth, leaving a trio of furrows like the mile-long claw marks of some hideous beast until he finally slowed, the dull grind of iron and grit fading as he halted.
Luw hung there for a long moment, clutching at the warmth of Maebhara’s haft as the nightmare of the fall dripped from his flesh. He sagged, fell to his knees, propped upon her, wrestling back the horror of Náith’s throw. Gasping, his body wracked with pain, he dared to stand.
The Sisters were gone, and only the faint stain of their storm lurked on the eastern horizon. Luw turned, slow, knees wobbling. Behind him, in the west, the stinking haze of Iarma’s marshes writhed. He was in the middle of fucking nowhere – that fat prick had launched him scores of miles into the island’s western reaches.
Hope withered beneath that distance. ‘No!’ Teeth clenched, tears prickled upon his cheeks. ‘No! No! No!’ He punched the earth again and again until his knuckles were bloody and his throat was raw. It couldn’t end like this – stranded in some barren shithole while Náith plundered the last of what he loved. It couldn’t. He wouldn’t let it! He was Luw, last of the Hunters, slayer of Sreng and wearer of Death’s face!
It would not end this way.
Luw ripped Maebhara from her earthen furrow and loosed a bloody scream at the grey sky. The amber runes along her blade’s edge blazed as if filled with sunlight, awakening as the lashing fury of his Earthbond sank its hooks into their power. Filled with the spear’s strength, his pain forgotten, he launched himself back into the east with all the swiftness of the diving hawk.
Síle would be his again this day, and Náith, he swore, would be a feast for the corpse bugs. There would be no other ending.
Chapter 24
The Sisters
Bodies littered the foothills. Aodhamar’s men – shattered, crushed, torn to pale, bloody ribbons. There was no telling how many of them had fallen here. Too many limbs and shreds of gore scattered too far across hills churned to mud. One poor fucker’s spine swayed from the branch of a tree, festooned with clinging meat. Náith drew a breath as he eyed the carnage from atop a southern ridge, looking for the glimmer of gold. He breathed, shoulders easing. No sign of Aodhamar. No sign of what had done the killing, either. Had to be big, though, to make such a mess of so many men… or something sorcerous.
Síle’s work, he thought bitterly, lifting his eyes to where the Sisters rose beyond it all, a pair of tusks thrust through the land’s flesh. Both were swallowed by black clouds halfway to their summits, coalescing at their thickest about Moírdhan – smaller of the two mountains. Lightning pulsed behind them, its grey light beckoning him toward Moírdhan’s flank.
Náith steeled himself as the thunder quarrelled, kissed the flat of his sword and dropped down into the foothills. On aching legs, he kicked himself into a sprint, crashing through a swaying sea of hookgorse, spearthistle, and butchered Nuankin, plunging into the winds whipping about the fringe of the storm. Even so far below its miserable clouds, the storm tried to deny him, set its screeching gale to slap and snatch at his body, making him curse himself a weakling and a fanny-boy as he stumbled upon a slope thick with death. He bellowed defiance that was lost to its roaring and cast himself into the folds between the foothills.
The storm’s fury diminished, screened by the hills on all sides, though its cold kn
ives still scraped his flesh. There were more dead here – scattered, torn and splattered among spent arrows and fallen swords. Náith picked his way through it all, staggering along the foothill’s winding trail, his eyes roving the glistening remains for any glimpse of Aodhamar’s golden robes, until they found the monstrosity embedded in the hillside. It was a towering thing, twice the size of most Nuankin, its body a haphazard jumble of shattered grey stone, shaped roughly like a man. Its hands were stained with gore and flesh, but a hole had been melted through its chest, the edges still smoking as the thing lay sprawled, smashed deep into the hillside.
Aodhamar. The gaudy bastard was still alive.
Náith steeled himself again, prayed none of these creatures stood in his path and turned away, hurrying along the trail. His pace was slow, sluggish for him even here, spared the worst of the storm. Síle’s deception and the fight with Luw had taken its toll on him, left his body riddled with a throbbing agony that the storm seemed to pluck at with every gale. Náith staggered as he reached the rocky foot of Moírdhan, the wind ripping his feet out from beneath him. The mountain’s dismal immensity wavered through watering eyes.
Náith bit down, swallowing grit and dust as he rammed his sword into Moírdhan’s stony flesh and dragged himself back to his feet. One last push. He bowed his head beneath the storm’s onslaught a moment longer, let its savagery awaken him as the winds clove themselves upon his blade. He threw himself onto the mountain’s slope, a roar that could not be heard blistering his throat.
Darkness loomed above as Náith bludgeoned his way through the winds, every gust that blasted the mountainside trying its damnable best to snatch him up and dash him upon its accursed stones. Náith fought on, clawing his way up Moírdhan’s jagged face, crawling between boulder, crag and thorn-rimed outcrop. He took shelter upon a ledge screened from the wind by sharp stone ridges, pausing to chase the chill from his limbs and seek his next path. It was dark here – the storm churned and spun but a few bounding strides above. So close, its edge was a discernible wall of black razor-winds and shredded cloud, where the slope ran gentler toward the endarkened summit. The light here was weak, drained, as if something in that roiling mass drank down the sun.
Breathing deep, Náith swung himself up onto the next ledge, forcing himself through the shrieking storm wall into darkness.
By the earth’s own blood, it hurt. Storm winds battered him, screeching sidelong across the mountain, staggering his path, frozen claws ripping ceaselessly at flesh and soul. Náith pushed through it, a hand raised against the wind, squinting through the murk and whipping strands of cloud to pick his way up the slope. A fork of lightning split the storm, spraying spark and flame from the mountainside as it struck in a blinding heartbeat of daylight. Náith fell blinded, a burning, jagged line scalded across his vision, his skull rattling as the thunder rolled over him.
‘Síle!’
Náith felt himself cry her name, his voice utterly engulfed by the storm and the ringing in his ears. He picked himself up, a green-red line still throbbing across what little he could see. He stumbled forward, veering as the storm struck him anew and bore him to his knees. He crawled into the shelter of a boulder, pressing himself into its cold face, swamped by a sudden, horrid sense of isolation. ‘Síle! Aodhamar!’ It was futile calling for them. Náith tore his eyes open behind a screening hand to peer ahead, the storm’s sharp fingers trying their damned best to rip them from his skull.
Lightning arced, higher up the mountain, blasting apart stone in a glowing spray. A slender outline stood against the glare, swallowed immediately by the storm’s darkness.
Náith’s heart rang louder than the storm as he leapt from cover, streaking toward where that shadow had lurked, crying out for Síle and stumbling over loose rock. Lightning struck again, high enough to reveal just how close Moírdhan’s peak loomed. The shadow was gone, smothered by another that towered jagged against the peak.
‘Shit.’
Náith spun away as the stone giant lurched toward him, leaping down the slope. A cruel weight slammed into his ankle, hard digits closing about it with foul strength and snatching him from the air. The stone giant dangled him before its shadowed, featureless head, its other hand closing about Náith’s sword arm. It raised him high to the storm, the winds swallowing his screams as it made to split him like a rock hare carcass.
A flash of silver flame whipped down the giant’s form, bursting out into white sparks as it struck the ground. A glowing red line was left in its wake, running down the giant’s face to its rocky groin, and with the grating and crashing of stone, it collapsed in shattered, sheared pieces.
Náith hit the ground, bounced down the slope toward the storm wall and slammed his sword into the mountain before he struck, hanging from its hilt. Feet finding purchase, he pushed himself back up, clinging to its hilt as the storm winds pelted him with shards of stone. He squinted through stinging darkness, a cold hand squeezing his heart as his eyes sought any trace of movement, any glimmer of iron. The murk above suddenly broke, pushed back by a pale, flickering light. A small figure knelt upon a ridge beneath Moírdhan’s summit, bent over the source of the light.
‘Síle!’
There was no answer, Náith’s cry lost once more to the storm. But before him, atop the mound of the stone giant’s corpse, a shape moved. Lightning blasted the mountain’s flank, painting the storm-dark slopes with a moment’s frail daylight. A black shadow cut against the glare, sparks dancing from its shoulders, from its crown of horns.
*
‘You?’
Luw could barely hear Náith’s cry over the storm’s black fury, but there was horror in the eyes behind Ancu’s mask and it was exquisite. Náith clung to his monstrosity of a sword as the storm tried to tear them both from Moírdhan’s face. Luw sank low atop the giant’s corpse, let his lithe frame lend him balance as Maebhara fed him the strength to withstand the winds.
The warrior’s head was shaking as the gale ebbed, his disfigured face veiled by matted hair. ‘Help me, Luw!’ he called. ‘Help me stop this!’
Lightning struck again near the mountain’s peak, the trembling hand that quested toward Luw white as old bone. He tilted his head as it came within reach and stood to the crackling of thunder. The realisation in the bastard’s sunken eyes was grim poetry amid the storm’s primal rage. He drank it in for a moment, and swept Maebhara out to the side in an arc of silver flames.
‘Don’t do this, Luw!’ The spear’s flames glistened in Náith’s bulging eyes. ‘Forget this feud! Help me stop her before she kills us all!’
‘I will forget nothing of this blood feud,’ Luw spat. ‘I will not let you have Síle.’
Shadows deepened across Náith’s empty faceplate. The warrior leapt for him as lightning cracked again, his sword ripping a gouge through the mountainside. Luw stepped off the stone giant before he was cloven balls-to-skull, sacrificing the high ground to strike at Náith’s back as the corpse exploded into screeching fragments. The warrior turned into Luw’s thrust, caught it with a snaking arm and spun, heaving him over his shoulder. Luw held tight to Maebhara, twisting in the air to wrap his shin around the back of Náith’s neck, the hook of his foot dragging both of them crashing down against the mountainside.
Náith rose over him, dark and terrible, his roar bludgeoning through the thunder. Luw rolled to the side as the warrior’s sword split rock and spewed a cloud of yellow sparks into the storm. He turned, rising and swinging the spear’s haft into the inside of Náith’s lead leg. The warrior fell to hand and knee, a sudden gale casting a sheet of matted hair across his face. Luw lunged to skewer him like a fallen beast, but Náith’s hand shot up, seizing Maebhara’s haft just behind her burning blade, her tip a hair’s whisper from his heart. Luw offered him a snarl through his own death mask, boots grinding stone, the warrior’s grip sure as iron. Thunder snarled upon the peak, rolled over them. Luw stole a glance at Síle – dearest Síle – still knelt over something that gave off
light. Sorrow lashed his soul.
‘You will not turn back from this, will you?’ Náith called.
‘How dare you shatter our happiness!’ Luw spat back at him. He took a step toward Náith, trying to grind Maebhara’s point through the warrior’s chest, but his grip was unyielding. ‘What right did you have to destroy all that I love, you covetous shit?’ he cried. ‘Bann! Síle! Why could you not just leave us be?’
Something shone in the warrior’s black eyes. Pity, Luw thought, fucking pity!
It was oil upon the embers. He roared, stepping through to twist Maebhara and Náith’s arm in upon the warrior and break his grip. Náith stood, turned with the momentum. Hooking the cross-guard of his sword about the spear’s haft, he swung Luw back against the mountainside and stomped a boot into his chest as he tried to rise. Lightning lit the storm-shroud above. Náith loomed over him, a dread spectre of Ancu beneath the notched blade of his raised sword. Luw threw Maebhara up as the blow fell. His check was clumsy, weak, and Náith’s grotesque sword bit deep into the haft behind her blade.
For a moment, time seemed as though it caught upon itself, and a web of cracks spread through Maebhara’s haft. Silver light bled through them, fanning out from the edge of the warrior’s blade. The moment shattered as Maebhara exploded, bursting apart in a cloud of screaming silver flames. Luw was cast further up the mountain, bouncing agonisingly from rocks and rolling onto his side. He clutched at the wrist of his spear-arm, the limb flooded with a pain unlike any he’d ever known. His hand was blackened, the flesh peeling and bubbling, riddled with charred splinters. White bone glistened in the depths of his palm. Worse, though, was the pain that wracked the trembling threads of his Earthbond – the sudden shattering of its link with Maebhara. It was as if a hammer had been taken to every bone in his body, bludgeoning something vital yet nameless from him. His very blood screamed within his veins, pleaded for mercy, for healing, flinging itself against the wounded constraints of his being. Luw twisted, curled as a foal torn from the womb too soon, weeping silently.
Horns of the Hunter: Tales of Luah Fáil Book 1 Page 20
